Discard Trope: Fantasy Conflict Counterpart

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Created By: Laevatein on June 10, 2013 Last Edited By: Agares on May 14, 2014

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Fantasy Conflict Counterpart

It's a conflict from our world, but not as we know it.

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Page Type:Trope

This trope deals with a story that features some sort of analogue of a real-world historical conflict in a fantasy or science fiction context in a different world from ours. This is especially popular in Japan, since it allows them to tell stories utilizing the era of World War II without actively mentioning the war.

Examples

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Anime and Manga

It's only seen through flashback, but the war between Thracia and Persia in Pluto is heavily based on the Iraq war (with robots). The United States of Thracia accuses the Middle East nation of Persia of making Robots of Mass Destruction, but before other countries can complete their investigation into whether it's true, Thracia sends troops in and starts a horrific, wasteful war that devastates the country. And this is all just a ploy to make Thracia the world's main superpower.

In One Piece, the New Fishman Pirates threaten the people of Fishman Island to commit Fumi-e on the late Queen Otohime's image, to shed out their loyalty to Queen Otohime (who has the exact opposite view of the Big Bad Hody Jones') which is a reference on feudal Japan's practice of purging Christians (they have their people step on a Christian imagery to prove that they're not Christian).

In-Universe example in Argo: A group of American diplomats pretend to be a Canadian film crew to escape Iran. When questioned about the (fake) movie by the Revolutionary Guard at the airport, they describe the plot as the Iranian Revolution as a space opera.

The Darkness Series is about a fantasy version of WWII. With Magic Missile shooting "sticks" as guns, dragons as aircraft, behemoths for tanks, leviathans for submarines, earthquake-generating spells powered by Human Sacrifice in place of airstrikes, the America equivalent even develops a Fantastic Nuke.

Yet another book series featuring an analogue to the War of the Roses is A Song of Ice and Fire, with the Feuding Families Stark and Lannister being less than subtle clues. And, even more directly, brief mentions are made of the Red and Green "Apple" Fossoways, who appear to have their own squabbles over titles and are two branches of a house. The symbol of House Tyrell, one of the major power players in the series, is depicted in the TV adaptation Game of Thrones as a dead ringer for the Tudor double rose.

The historical wars between Ephebe and Tsort resemble the mythical Trojan War. In Pyramids, when there's a threat of the war re-erupting, both sides build wooden horses along the border.

Jingo combines elements of the Gulf War (the enemy is the Arabian Fantasy Counterpart Culture, it's mentioned that Ankh-Morpork [ie the West] actually sold the Klatchians their weapons for use in "pacifying" their own people, and jingoism leads to racism against Klatchian-Morporkians) and the Falklands War (the conflict is over an island that is of no real significance except that the other lot aren't getting their hands on it).

Firefly was partially inspired by journals of Confederate soldiers on the frontier from The American Civil War, and the Unification War and aftermath has its similarities (Alliance occupation troops in the series' present = Union occupation troops during Reconstruction, for instance). However the comparison isn't perfect, as the Independent Faction started out independent instead of trying to secede and failing.

Dinosaurs: In the two-parter "Nuts to War" filmed shortly after the first Gulf War, had the two-legged dinosaurs go to war with the four-leggers over pistachio nuts in "Operation We Are Right."

Video Games

The developers of the FreeSpace 2 mod Blue Planet: War in Heaven have stated that the war between the United Earth Federation and the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance is meant to be the Vietnam War in space. In both cases we have one side being far more powerful than the other but forced to fight a limited and conservative war due to political divisions and murky objectives while the much less powerful but more ideologically convinced side is simply trying to hold its own and ultimately push the other side out by costing them enough blood. Similarly to the Vietnam War, there is no clear-cut good guy.

The Wing Commander series was conceived as a sci-fi version of World War II aircraft carrier operations in the Pacific Theatre (with some Top Gun mixed in).

I think this would qualify as Alternate History. For example, Strike Witches replaces World War II with an alien invasion, thus forcing the nations of the world to fight them as opposed to each other. This fight is also aided by research that proves the existence of magic and weaponizing it.

I think there is a trope here, but there are examples that aren't tied to World War II. The way I take it is that it's a reasonably straight re-telling of a real-world historical event in a fantasy or science fiction context, ie it has similarities with Recycled In Space.

The second duology of Arcia Chronicles is a fantasy retelling of the Wars of the Roses, dubbed "War of the Daffodils".

Another fantasy retelling is the "War of the Lions" that drives the plot of the original Final Fantasy Tactics game.

...and yet another in A Song Of Ice And Fire, with Stark and Lannister Feuding Families being less than subtle clues. And, even more directly, brief mentions are made of the Red and Green "Apple" Fossoways, who appear to have their own squabbles over titles and are two branches of a house. The symbol of House Tyrell, one of the major power players in the series, is dipicted in the TV adaptation Game Of Thrones as a dead ringer for the Tudor double rose.

Firefly was partially inspired by journals of Confederate soldiers on the frontier from The American Civil War, and the Unification War and aftermath has its similarities (Alliance occupation troops in the series' present = Union occupation troops during Reconstruction, for instance). However the comparison isn't perfect, as the Independent Faction started out independent instead of trying to secede and failing.

Final Fantasy XII, the story is effectively the Cold War with the events of the game as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Archadia's goal over the last several years has been to take over Ivalice, and the other major world power, Rozarria, is nervous about their ambitions. Many on both sides don't want war, but neither is willing to look weak or back down. Enter the party, lead by the princess of one of Archadia's conquered kingdoms, seeking power and allies to begin open rebellion. Such a conflict would give Rozarria a prime chance to make the first move against Archadia before Archadia makes it against them, and the game depicts the escalating tensions of the world leaders as they prepare for the coming war.

What the heck? How do you derive Ace Combat Zero as a World War I analogue? How does a world war caused by the assassination of an arch-duke, which lead to conflicts between countries due to very poorly thought-out alliances between said countries compare to a country who wants to expand it's borders in order to claim new natural resources, only to be pushed back by a collective alliance of every other country on the continent and lose even more of their own country's territory?

I'll admit that the Strangereal world has it's Fantasy Culture Counterparts, with 6 countries representing three different versions of both the United States and Russia, but I didn't really see any specific references to the Cold War in any of them other than obvious generic references that anything else could easily just as replicate outside of the series.

Another example from A Song Of Ice And Fire- the series has an elite army of eunuchs called the Unsullied, who are trained/conditioned through The Spartan Way. There's a mention at one point of the Three Thousand Unsullied who held back a much larger Dothraki force, and while they all died, have a Doomed Moral Victor status and were honored by their foes (to explain the blue links, the Unsullied stand in for the Three Hundred Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae).

@DRCEQ: The Belkan War has some similarities with WW 1, such as the flying aces honoring each other and the giant weapons being deployed. But yeah, there are also similarities to WW 2 (German-speaking nation aggressively expanding but getting its capital sacked, the saturation bombings, and the nuclear weapons ending the war).

The question is really where to put the dividing lines. [1] is in part an analogue of the conflicts in Spain during the reconquista, but it covers just a short episode and is more a domestic than an international conflict. Would that count? Or some of Guy Gavriel Kay's books?

An old possible example:

In The Begum's Millions by Jules Verne, with two competing cities that are expies for France and Germany. Verne made no bones on where his sympathies where.

Possible quote from Zero Punctuation: "Sorry, did I say Adolf Hitler? I was, of course, referring to Gadolf Shmitler, Chancellor of Bermany. Valkyria Chronicles concerns the outbreak of war on the continent of Europa between the evil empire in the East (for there are no good empires) and the allied federation in the West. It's World War II in everything but names, and the disguise is cling-film thin."

It's only seen through flashback, but the war between Thracia and Persia in Pluto is heavily based on the Iraq war (with robots). The United States of Thracia accuses the Middle East nation of Persia of making Robots of Mass Destruction, but before other countries can complete their investigation into whether it's true, Thracia sends troops in and starts a horrific, wasteful war that devastates the country. And this is all just a ploy to make Thracia the world's main superpower.

In One Piece, the New Fishman Pirates threatens the people of Fishman Island to commit Fumi-e on the late Queen Otohime's image, to shed out their loyalty to Queen Otohime (who has the exact opposite view of the Big Bad Hody Jones') which is a reference on feudal Japan's practice of purging Christians (they have their people step on a Christian imagery to prove that they're not Christian).

Jingo combines elements of the Gulf War (the enemy is the Arabian Fantasy Counterpart Culture, it's mentioned that Ankh-Morpork [ie the West] actually sold the Klatchians their weapons for use in "pacifying" their own people, and jingoism leads to racism against Klatchian-Morporkians) and the Falklands War (the conflict is over an island that is of no real significance except that the other lot aren't getting their hands on it).

In Universe example in Argo: a group of American diplomats pretend to be a Canadian film crew to escape Iran. When questioned about the (fake) movie by the Revolutionary Guard at the airport, they describe the plot as the Iranian Revolution as a space opera.

No Axis Powers Hetalia? I haven't followed up enough with the show to write the example myself, but it at least started out as anthropomorphic personifications of the countries of the world during the WWII era.

The developers of the Free Space 2 mod Blue Planet: War in Heaven have stated that the war between the United Earth Federation and the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance is meant to be the Vietnam War in space, in both cases we have one side being far more powerful than the other but is forced to fight a limited and conservative war due to political divisions and murky objectives while the much less powerful but more ideologically convinced side is simply trying to hold its own and ultimately push the other side out by costing them enough blood. Similarly to the Vietnam War, there is no clear-cut good guy.

The historical wars between Ephebe and Tsort resemble the mythical Trojan War. In Pyramids, when there's a threat of the war re-erupting, both sides build wooden horses along the border.

Jingo, published a few years after the first Gulf War, has Ankh-Morpork getting into a rather pointless territorial war with the Arab-counterpart Klatchians, and the resulting intolerant attitudes against Klatchian immigrants in Ankh-Morpork. [EDIT: I just noticed someone already listed Jingo, in more detail.]

^ Another, though it's only apparent through Word Of God, is that the ancient Evil Empire is based on the USSR, with the alliance that finally toppled it based on Europe. What information there is on this conflict within the series itself suggests that the Empire was not nearly as evil as painted, but that its history was Written By The Winners.

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